U.S. swimming sensation Ryan Lochte has been taking some ribbing over his press interviews at these Olympics in which he demonstrates a skill at speaking that's inversely proportional to his skill in the pool.

But Lochte has proven he's not above taking the piss out of himself -- literally! -- with a video on FunnyOrDie.com, in which he talks about his penchant for peeing in the pool.

The skit presumably comes out of comments Lochte made a few days ago, in which he freely admitted he pees in the pool during race warm-ups, and that it's common among professional swimmers.

Media outlets had a field day with Lochte's remarks and they were circulated extensively online, although how this came as a surprise to anyone is beyond me. If horses can poop during dressage, surely swimmers should be allowed to pee in the pool.

Irish eyes aren't smiling

Ireland won its first gold medal of these Olympics when boxer Katie Taylor triumphed over Russia's Sofya Ochigava in the 60-kg women's final Thursday. My heartfelt congrats to Ms. Taylor, one of Britain's finest female fighters.

Wait! Put down your knives, bats and broken bottles, Irish friends. I know Katie Taylor isn't British, I'm just calling out the epic poopstorm that erupted on the other side of the Atlantic when London's Daily Telegraph, in a short blub advancing the semifinal bout, asked, "Can anyone defeat Britain's Katie Taylor, the most technically proficient attacking boxer in the world?"

You think it's annoying being a Canadian who gets mistaken for an American, or a New Zealander who gets compliments on her lovely Australian accent? Take that, multiply it by the centuries of bad blood between Ireland and Great Britain, and you've got an idea of the slight many Irish feel when identified as British.

(If you're a bit unclear on the tangled political and geographical semantics that define Great Britain and the United Kingdom, and how this relates to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, check out this informative video.

After the gaffe blew up online, the Telegraph tweeted an apology: "We're sorry for mistakenly describing the fantastic boxer Katie Taylor as British in our London 2012 section today. She is Irish, of course." Of course.

Sobering mistake

Speaking of putting the ire in Irish, an Australian newspaper chain also issued an apology after running a story about Katie Taylor, which was headlined "Punch Drunk: Ireland intoxicated as Taylor swings towards boxing gold." And included the line, "For centuries, Guinness and whiskey have sent the Irish off their heads. Now all it takes is a petite 26-year-old from Wicklow."

Jokes about insobriety in the story, which appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald website, did not go over well with many Irish. Including Noel White, the Irish ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, who called it a "lapse into lazy stereotyping." The newspaper modified the story online and the writer publicly apologized. Right after he rode his kangaroo to Koalatown to pick up some shrimp for his barbie, mate!

Samuel L. Jackson tweeting what the rest of us were thinking of the day:

"I thought the BMX thing was a put on! Don't the X Games count?!" Prolific Olympic Twitterer @SamuelLJackson has a point ... if BMX racing is an Olympic sport, why not street luge? Actually, that would be really fun to watch.